“He certainly has improved in looks, and there is quite a foreign air about him, and his clothes are Paris made,” she thought, and her spirits rose proportionately as she advanced leisurely to meet him.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Alice,” he exclaimed. “Comment vous portez vous,” and kissing her loudly on both cheeks he continued: “Que pensez-vous de cela? Doesn’t it smack of foreign travel?”
Alice had not quite expected this, but the French delighted her, though she inly pronounced the accent horrid, and the hearty kisses pleased her, even if they were wet and loud, and she blushed very becomingly, and called him a “dear, naughty boy,” and kept hold of his hand until he freed it from her, thinking to himself that she was unusually gushing, and not a whit pretty either.
“By George, Allie,” he began, as his eyes rested on her hair. “No, I don’t mean that. I’ve quit slang,” he added, with a thought of Gertie Westbrooke; “but, Allie, what is that on the top of your head? It looks like the door-knob, and makes me think of that picture of William Tell’s boy with the big apple on his head. Got a story above the style this time. Should think you’d take cold in the back of your neck. They don’t wear it so in Par-ee.”
And with his light badinage he demolished Alice’s hopes of admiration, and struck a blow at the wonderful structure she had spent so much time in rearing.
“Godfrey, Godfrey,” Julia cried in a tremor of distress and agitation as she caught the sound of wheels, and felt that the catastrophe so dreaded was coming at last. “Tell us true, is she so fearfully ugly?”
“She’s wonderful, and you may as well bring out your smelling salts and camphor,” Godfrey replied; and then grasping Julia by the shoulder and calling to his other sister: “Come, Em, and see the elephant,” he led the way to the front door, where Edith stood looking eagerly about her, not limping nor squinting, nor ugly, nor old, but a marvellously beautiful woman, with ease and grace in every motion, and no sign of embarrassment or awkwardness about her.
There was a flush on her cheek and a glitter in her eyes, but otherwise she was calm and self-possessed when her husband took her hand and led her up the steps to the group of astonished and bewildered girls, who had looked this way and that, and then, under their breath, had ejaculated, hurriedly:
“Why—what—who—oh—oh—Godfrey, Godfrey, you WRETCH!”
And that last word embodied Julia’s feelings, as, with one glance at her brother, who stood choking with laughter, she went to meet the stranger.